Mammillaria Mixtepec ?!?

I saw on a exhibition a plant named Mammillaria Mixtepec. Looks like some of the Supertexta/Leucocephale series (maybe Hahniana or Haageana or...). Tried to find it on the net but failed - does anybody have some idea???

Hi mmartic,

The nearest to your plant name is possibly m. mixtecensis, which is part of the m. mystax complex from the series polyedrae. Hope that helps.

Thank's on the fast answer! I''ll have to buy it, make a photo, post it here, and after that we can make some more decisions
Mixtepec is definitely mentioned in many areas in Mexico, so probably there was many names in the origin of the mamillaria seed. Greenhouse owner choosed to accept only the first and the last word in the name  

Hi mmartic,

Yes, I meant to say to you yesterday that there were several places with the word mixtepec in their name. Particularly in the Oaxaca area, where many plants from the supertexae can be found, especially albilanata.
Any plant found in or close to an area with Mixtepec in it's place name and thought to be a good new mammillaria, I think would have more than just mixtepec as it's name. It would be ending in the usual latin terms of ii,ae,ensis etc. If seed or an offset was taken from a habitat (naughty!) near a Mixtepec site and grown on for future naming, it could well be that for the time being the grower just wrote mammillaria sp.from Mixtepec for reference. In time the" sp. from" has been left off. If, as you suggest, it had the appearance of a supertexta type plant, then most experienced mammillaria growers or collectors,which i am not, may just dismiss it as a variant of a very variable species.

A photo would be good.

Here it is, on my balcony   Small one, in a pot 5x5cm, about 20 radials, 2 centrals (yellowish to deep red/brown on the top). All together very "hahnianna-look like" for me. One bud is visible, so I'll also take a picture with a first flower!

Hi mmartic,

Now possibly a magenta flowered variant of m. halbingeri, which extends into the Sierra Mixteca. True m. halbingeri would have yellow flowers.

Thank's delandmo,
nice guess, halbingeri isn't familiar to me! I'll wait for the flower and some growth an post another pic... It's for sure that plant is from the seed which has some "mixtepec" label on the package...

I've been looking at maps, and also going through Mexican place names. There seems only to be one Mixtepec, and that is San Juan Mixtepec. Interestingly, it is also the name of a language, spoken only by about 9500 people who live in that area.



If the label is right for the plant, it certainly can't be M. hahniana. From that area, the options include a form of M. albilanata ssp. oaxacana and M. haageana ssp. conspicua, but not much else apart from M. halbingeri. The stated location of this, is only about 25kms south of San Juan Mixtepec. Your plants look a lot more open than my plant of Lau 1108, but one cannot generalise on only one collection of a plant. It might be halbingeri, a red flowered form, but from a different population to that which Lau found.

This is intriguing me, so I shall continue to investigate.

Thanks on efforts Chris, I've found also San Bernard Mixtepec and San Pedro Mixtepec on Google maps  
Anyway I'm also very intrigued as in any interesting ID search
P.S. Couldn't take some more time these days but I have a few more riddles. Will be more topics and photos

Hi Chris,

Yes as you can see I previously thought it might be albiiinata susp. oaxacana without the photo. With the photo I think it is more halbingeri, with what appears to be a red flower showing through the bud. If you take on board what John Pilbeam says about the distribution of the red flowered plants it could well be a good contender. " The magenta- flowered variant has a much wider distribution, from around Ocotepec to the Tlaxiaco junction of highway 190, and further into the Sierra Mixteca " Field nos. listed as Lau 1108,
1588 : ML 257,259.

Hi MMartic and Del,

It does look like it is going to be red flowered. What I am uncertain about is whether the red flowered plant called M. halbingeri is actually distinct from the many, many, different forms of M. albilanata ssp. oaxacana.

The yellow flowered plant that is the "true" M. halbingeri, from its original description, sounds different to me, in the spination, the centrals being much longer than the radials and all brown, and obviously the flower colour is not that usual in a Supertextae series plant, although some forms of M. dixanthocentron have flowers that are more yellow than pink.

I think we might be facing the age old issue of trying to assess the significance of the differences between plants / species. I don't know why Lau decided that the plant he found was M. halbingeri, as the rationale for some decisions, not only his but those of many others, are not always clearly documented.

I think that Reppenhagen had the same problem, as in his monograph, he describes the yellow flowered plant, but shows a red flowered plant! He goes on to say "The plant was never again found, and one similar that LAU found in Ocotepec is often considered  as Mammillaria halbingeri, but differs in size and colour."

A yellow flowered plant has been found in more recent years, by Thomas Linzen (TL199, 200) and Helmut Rogozinski (Rog 359), and said to be the rediscovery of the 1933 initial find. The location of these finds is Ocotepec, which I assume to be San Tomas Ocotepec. To my eyes they are quite different to the red flowered forms that I have (Lau 1108, P476 and Rog 160), and not just the flowers, much longer central spines, making the plant look a little bristly. They are certainly different from the plants shown above, as they centrals are all brown, not white with brown tips.

I'm going to throw in another contender - a plant called M. pseudohalbingeri, found by Linzen (TL303), Rogozinski (Rog 405) and also Lacoste (ML250). It is a nomen nudum, so not formally described, which makes it difficult. I have two plants (TL303 and ML250), and both are coming in to bud, whereas the plants with a M. halbingeri label (both yellow and red flowered) show no signs yet of budding up. That might be significant - or not! However, where it comes from is a fair distance from Mixepec.

I'll post a photo of them tomorrow anyway, and you can judge. But take a look at the photos in the A-Z here

I think that in the famous words of a botanist who has no answer - more field work required!

Hi Chris,

Good reply.

My yellow-flowered halbingeri is in flower at the moment,( as is my red one ), a plant I bought last year from Paul Klassen when he visited our branch. Bill Maddams also bought, one describing it as true to type. Unfortunately no field number! These plants have white centrals with brown tips.
In Wolf's amended description of the colony of yellow-flowered plants found by Lau & Kohres and close to
the more widely spread magenta-flowered plants, he says amongst others, it has 2 central spines, some times one, glassy white to cream coloured with brown tips, to nearly completely brown. The magenta-flowered larger colony is taken to be the same species.

Obviously the spine colour is variable, I'm not surprised. Was there any rationale given for the assumption that the magenta flowered plants were the same species?

Hi Chris

The assumption as far as I understand wasn't necessarily Wolf's but by other experts after the amendment, such as Hunt and Pilbeam etc. No one person.

Hmmm....that sort of decision always worries me, it needs the people involved really to be able to understand the plants properly.

Well, here is the flower:

New moments, started to produce 4 central spines... and looks more "mature" with longer centrals...